COMMENT LE NEUTRE MOBILISE-T-IL LA COLÈRE ?
HOW DOES THE NEUTRAL ACTIVATE ANGER?

Summary/Abstract: Anger is one of the figures that instantiate the category of the Neutral, as described in the lecture course offered by Roland Barthes at Collège de France in 1977–1978. At a first glance, relating a concept that has emerged from structural linguistics with a fundamental affect (not only from a psychological perspective but also from a cultural one) may seem a surprising approach. This surprising connection makes precisely the object of my interest here, especially because of its outcomes: firstly, it introduces the Neutral in the vocabulary of affects, and secondly, it places a special emphasis on the transformative capacity of affects. An analytic reading of the figure of anger allows me to investigate, within the framework of this article, the way in which Barthes divides the affect, oscillating between anger as a psychological phenomenon and anger as a value, or an evaluation. Thus, he initiates the thinking of an ethical problem: the Neutral becomes a life guide, a principle to live by, a (desirable) lifestyle, and not only a discourse operator.

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